[285-286] For immediate and superficial observation, the highest psychological life naturally appears to be entirely stamped with purposiveness. Generalizing by a well-known method from the known to the unknown, we see that attempts have long been made at a teleological interpretation of all lower psychological life. Does not the simplest reflex, such as the blinking of the eye at overly bright light, the simplest physical pleasures and sufferings, primitive emotions—do not all these facts seem to be prescribed by the interest in the preservation and progress of the species, or else the preservation and progress of the individual? Beginning from the amoeba, that rudimentary clump of protoplasm, which stretches toward certain light radiations and tries to avoid others, is not all activity, which one considers possible to call conscious, always falling into the category of inclination, and is not inclination itself purposiveness in action?

It is hardly surprising, then, that James, Tarde, and many others conclude from these facts that psychological laws bear an entirely different character than other laws of nature. These are teleological laws...

The teleological conception of psychological law is in essence nothing other than scientific veneer laid over metaphysical conceptions that make inclination, will-to-live, instinct, will, and action the foundation of all that exists. It was, moreover, assimilated, elucidated, and developed by the pragmatists, the champions of the primacy of action. For them functional psychology and finalist psychology are synonymous terms...

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